*Each Monday, Prophet’s Chief Curator and Provocateur, Andy Stefanovich, or a member of our innovation team* shares a Monday on-ramp with Prophet employees across the globe. We’ll begin sharing them here, and encourage you to join the conversation by answering questions and providing your own comments below. Happy Monday!

This past week we completed a client project in New York City regarding the characteristics and competencies of entrepreneurship. As part of the project, Friends of the Highline co-founder Joshua David hosted a conversation for our client group around the role a vision played in the elevated-train-line-turned-public-park. David finished his presentation with a story about Patty Heffley, who’s fourth-floor living room and fire escape overlooks one of the more congested parts of The Highline.

What’s the big deal about Heffly’s and her fire escape? The ability to identify an opportunity in “the marketplace,” create an idea to exploit the opportunity, and ultimately “commercialize it.” The following is paraphrasing Joshua’s story as told to our group.

Heffley, a freelance media consultant, had lived in the apartment for over 30 years, enjoying the privacy and seclusion afforded by a defunct-railroad-as-neighbor. However, as the rail line was transformed, and the park opened, two unlikely things intersected to create an opportunity: a security light, and a crowd. The glaring beam of the security light, which was erected as part of the park, inadvertently shown like a spotlight directly onto Heffly’s fire-escape balcony. And then, as the park opened, the crowds began to converge at a particularly narrow part of The Highline situated at just about eyelevel with Heffly’s apartment. Heffley spotted an opportunity, and strung up colorful lanterns on her fire escape, set up a speaker and microphone, and began staging “cabarets” from her balcony turned stage for the throngs for Highline visitors next door.

*This week’s on-ramp was brought to you by Geof Hammond in our Richmond office.